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Walter Burkert's Lore And Science In Ancient Pythagoreanism

Topics: pythagoreanism, platonism
Collection: booksbylanguage_greek; booksbylanguage
Language: English; Ancient Greek
Item Size: 630.4M

By a thorough critical sifting of all the available evidence, the author lays a new foundation for the understanding of ancient Pythagoreanism and in particular of the relationship within it of "lore" and "science." He shows that in the twilight zone when the Greeks were discovering the rational interpretation of the world and quantitative natural science, Pythagoras represented not the origin of the new, but the survival or revival of ancient, pre-scientific lore or wisdom, based on superhuman authority and expressed in ritual obligation.